Obama Offers Assurance to Saudis on Syria Stance

President Obama met with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at his desert palace in Rawdat Khuraim on Friday.Credit
Doug Mills/The New York Times

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — President Obama reassured King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia on Friday that the United States remained committed to strengthening the moderate opposition in the Syrian civil war, administration officials said.

But aides declined to reveal whether Mr. Obama and the king agreed to any significant expansion of the covert program to train and arm the Syrian opposition. Relations between the two countries have become strained in recent months, in part over Saudi frustration with the United States’ reluctance to provide arms that could end up in the hands of jihadists and extremists in Syria.

“The emergence of some more extremist elements within the opposition only reinforces the need to strengthen the more moderate opposition,” a senior administration official told reporters in Riyadh after a two-hour meeting at the king’s palatial desert compound. “We have been improving that coordination and planning with our partners and allies.”

Mr. Obama met with Abdullah at the end of the president’s weeklong tour through Europe, which focused primarily on bolstering the European response to Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine. In Saudi Arabia, the president shifted his focus to another region racked by conflict.

Saudi Arabia and other gulf states have favored a greater effort to arm and train rebels who have taken up arms against the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. Last year, however, the White House abruptly shelved plans for a military strike after Mr. Assad agreed to a Russian proposal to get rid of his chemical weapons arsenal.

In February, the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., told Congress that Mr. Assad’s hold on power had strengthened, and Robert S. Ford, the recently retired envoy to Syria, said that his government was likely to survive in the medium term.

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Saudi leaders have also expressed alarm at Mr. Obama’s diplomatic initiative with Iran to halt much of that country’s nuclear program, which they consider a serious threat to the region. Officials said Iran was a key topic of discussion between the president and the king.

American officials described the perception of a rift as overstated, and while conceding some differences in approach on Syria and Iran, they added that the meeting underlined the enduring alliance of the two countries.

“Our strategic interests are much more aligned than different,” an official said, speaking anonymously in order to discuss the private meeting between the leaders.

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While the tone of the administration’s comments on Friday might have been welcomed by the Saudis, it remained unclear if the Obama administration’s policy on Syria would make a significant difference on the battlefield, where the opposition has been struggling.

Benjamin J. Rhodes, Mr. Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said that progress between Washington and Riyadh had already been made in coordinating “who we’re providing assistance to and what types of assistance we’re providing.” But he added that the United States was still worried about proposals to give the rebels shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles known as manpads.

“We have made clear that there are certain types of weapons, including manpads, that could pose a proliferation risk if introduced into Syria,” he said. “We continue to have those concerns.”

Egypt has been another point of contention between the United States and Saudi Arabia, which supported the Egyptian military’s ouster of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s democratically elected president. Mr. Rhodes said the United States was concerned about the “shockingly large” number of death sentences recently handed down in Egypt.

“We have a shared interest in stability,” Mr. Rhodes said, but this policy would be best supported by “Egypt sticking to a democratic road map.”

Several groups had urged the president to raise the subject of the kingdom’s treatment of women and accusations of human rights abuses. Officials said it did not come up at the meeting.

A version of this article appears in print on March 29, 2014, on Page A9 of the New York edition with the headline: Obama Offers Assurance to Saudis on Syria Stance. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe